>> this is "the chris matthews show." >> ask not what your country can do for you. >> tear down this wall. >> i can hear you. >> the time for change has come! chris: the man whose turn it is, romney waited in line for the presidency and even with his slowed momentum he's system the heavy favorite. but who is this guy really? beyond the familiar name and face, do we really know him? what's he want? besides the job, that is? is it all about his dad? is it about conquering the next big thing? or is it what he says it is, all about this country? and finally, money ball. the president's men will be short of cash this time and the

republicans will be flush. far flusher than four years ago. will barack obama be outmatched? and outdone? hi, i'm chris matthews. welcome to the show. with us today the "national journal's" major garrett, nbc's andrea mitchell. "the washington post's" kathleen parker. and "the boston globe's" neil swidey. first up, even with his bad last two weeks, full of slipups and slowed momentum, mitt romney still looks like the heavy republican favorite. that means he's got a 50-50 shot to win the white house this november. but a "new york times" poll shows that half of the voters don't know mitt romney well enough to support or oppose him. who is he? today, we look at romney's motivations, for running. and his personality. first, let's look at these three possible motivations for mitt's run. his father, george romney, ran himself in 1968. but dropped out when he slipped and said he had been brainwashed by the generals in a visit to vietnam. second, is mitt romney driven by ideology or philosophy?

and third, did he have a big career in business to build a life for himself? or was it also always a foundation for politics? neil swidey, you're on the spot. you've covered him for years for the globe. let's get to some basics here. i grew up knowing a lot of us here with george romney who ran for president. looked like a real contender. and then he had that comment about the generals having brainwashed him into supporting the war. how much of the son is driven by the old man's failure? >> i think it's enormous. i think george romney forms the central axis in mitt romney's life and when you see him follow his father's footsteps from business leader to governor to presidentialas prant. i was shocked, he had never seen the brainwashed interview. i showed it to him a few years ago when i was doing a profile of it and to watch his face sort of dissolve and kind of relax is as -- seeing this interview, that it really changed the course of his life. they -- the romney family never looked back. but in his mind, i think there is this idea that this is what

he's supposed to do. to finish the job his father couldn't. chris: we've had a president like that. george w. who a lot of people, all psychobabble to some extent but a lot of people believe he tried to do a lot of things like go into iraq because his father didn't "finish the job." is it like that? is it that driven? >> more of the path that was set. his father was never a president so he doesn't have that sort of record to correct or to alter from. and i don't see the push and pull with george w. bush and his father, the kind of difference in them. although when you get down into the relationship between george and mitt romney, there's a lot of affection there. but they are two completely different people. their operating systems are different. chris: andrea. >> can i interrupt? that's unlike me. and may be fairly bored with this conversation and there are not these deep psychological motivations and we want to please our parents to some extent but these are two very distinct individuals. and if there is a driving

philosophy, i think it really comes down to duty. you have -- the mormon church has something to do with it but the way he was raised. chris: we've seen so many guys, men in most cases who come along after their father and they see their father having blown it one way or the other, george w. bush's father was defeated for re-election and al gore's father was defeated for senator, mario cuomo, and not like any deep psychological weirdness here. it's they learned from experience. and they're not quite their old man because of that experience. >> and i don't think it's so much freud. i think it is sort of history, biography, and it is as you say, made -- all of the above. completing what the father has not finished. it is the path, it is duty, yes, faith. and i was so struck in seeing on the trail that when mitt romney gets on the bus, the first thick you see is -- thing you see is a picture of george romney. who puts the picture of their father snup george w. bush

didn't. you don't see bush 41 decorating the campaign bus. you don't see john mccain whose father was also a huge influence. showing his father off. so i think that is really compelling. and it is completerring the family -- chris: don giovanni, a frightening father coming back to judge you. let's go to major, this question of goal driven. he has the ambition to be president and he may have inherited it he seems to have, there's still the oddness about him. he seems to have the goal but not instinct to be a politician. >> his political instincts are limited. i had a conversation with peter hart, a successful democratic pollster and a question he likes to introduce to people about presidential candidates. if they're your neighbor what words come to your mind? what the words that came to most people's minds, "high hedges." high hedges. all right. and that's -- that's the kind of impression people have of mitt romney.

which contrasts from people i've talked to who know governor romney really well, that he's exceptionally personal. personable. generous. and has a want about him. but like we've encountrd all in american political life, there are some people who are that way naturally but they don't project that. they don't carry that off on a national stage. or even a statewide stage in massachusetts. i think that's one of the big impediments for governor romney. >> one quig thing, it's part -- quick thing, it's partly the way he was raised, when he was at harvard business school, he was living in the suburbs and they were raising children and never an undergraduate living with other kids and not even -- chris: high hedges. i love this idea, the suburbanite. let me ask you about his philosophy because his critics have said he doesn't have one. people who have worked with him, people who i've talked to worked with say he's data driven. he's almost like an investment banker. a young person. constantly trying to find out information. is he data driven or does he have some basic philosophical notion that he's trying to

follow? >> i think what you see with romney, and you see this, his governing style most clearly in his first two years as governor of massachusetts, he was a best and brightest guy and brought in people irrespective of party and wanted to tackle big issues. health care, the biggest of them. he was interested in solutions. he's an input-output guy and not an ideology guy. chris: how would he deal with an issue? we talked about all the time on this program, everybody in america talks about, the threat from iran. how would he decide whether to bomb iran or let israel bomb iran? how would he do that? >> the question with romney and this is the big question, it's that what input-output is he most focused on? he changed completely after two years as governor because he began -- became interested in running for president. or at least following through on a long interest on it. and then the inputs and outputs were what's going to play for his national race. that -- this happened with clinton when he was in office. are you more concerned with politics or are you more concerned with the actual execution of government? and that's the big question for him. >> this is the central question

when voters evaluate governor romney as a potential president. you can have input and output but what is your goal and how do you have a strategy to achieve that goal when you don't -- or you may not have a -- or voters may question whether you have an instinct or the human beings involved in politics? >> and leading people and evaluating people across the table. or across the globe. chris: let me ask you about the money. i don't know any politician like him. who has this really intense knowledge of money and pecuniary interest to make a quarter billion dollars which i respect as an ability and the ability to be leader of people. they seem to be two different parts of the brain. which -- what's he got? >> i can't think of someone else with his particular biography. because he doesn't have that connection to people. you see him out on the trail, he doesn't seem to relate to people. and i think that's what peter hart was picking up with his focus group. and in the way he made money, it wasn't manufacturing like his father, an iconic car, the

rambler. it isn't a product. >> never understood how he made his money. and that was one of the things that mitt struggled with. >> and more so the leveraged buyouts. that was the larger part of the career was lefrpbled buyouts. -- leveraged buyouts. that's not a productive form of capital creation other than making money. chris: let's get to what romney is like, the old question, three key questions about that. what is this distancing people are always talking about? he has this distance from people. and is he a good guy, that's a tough one and what would happen if he lost, and how important is this race to him? i got to go back to you. the distance thing. everybody says that. and you want to go in on this, kathleen? >> i'm dying. chris: go. people say he looks through when you he talks to you. >> i've spent time with him a little bit. and he doesn't look through you. i don't think. he's very warm. now, he just likes me better than he likes these other people. i'm kidding. but i think we're missing something here. when you talk about his leadership ability, i mean, one of the things i've noticed

about mitt romney is that he has a core group of people who have been with him for 10 years. his inner circle are very fine people. i'm sure you know some of them. they are devoted to him. and his inability to convey that kind of leadership to the public at large, has something to do with his sort of -- sort of endearing awkwardness. and get right down to -- he has a leadership. he is a leader among his own -- the people who know him well. chris: when you interview him with a pen rather than a microphone is he more real? >> no. i think he's exactly the same. i've interviewed him on camera and off camera. he strikes me as the same analytical, cautious, unlike his father, who was more brash. more go for the jugular. mitt, governor romney is much more cautious. but he strikes me as the same person on and off cam rafment which is not necessarily -- and off camera. which is not necessarily opaque. >> guarded. >> what happens off camera is the skill set that he has works.

he's analytical. but he's actually human. and he connects with you, and he can have a conversation with them. on camera, he's thinking, you see the machinery working, of what -- how is this going to play? what's going to happen? >> the analogy to barack obama, surrounded by a loyal group of people, and a little bit removed, there's always the reserve. so interesting to see these two figures who may well be facing off against each other. >> you're right, andrea. >> having this one-to-one -- they don't connect one on one. chris: whatever they are when they're running they're going to be more of when they get in here. if he's remote now he will be more remote in there, if he's analytical now, he won't be a big philosopher leader. an analytical leader and become somewhat boring which obama has been, somewhat boring. >> i would say one thing that separates the two of them. i think as a candidate, i very distently got the impression, the country did, too, that barack obama was very comfortable with his narrative and he wrote his nare active and carried his narrative into the american experience. governor romney knows his narrative but is not nearly as viscerally comfortable with it, himself, and that's why he has

hard time conveying it comfortably. and persuasively to the american public. >> thabe partly the mormon -- >> maybe that's partly the mormon thing. that's been a point of tension for him. >> trying to did he emphasize it. -- trying to de-emphasize it. >> exactly. and the mormonism has become -- are hess biggest qualities. >> mormonism, finance, are opaque worlds to many americans and he has had trouble conveying that and make that seem approachable to the -- chris: we're going to take a break. but a crutch for romney when he's attacked as the heartless job killer is one of his success stories at bain capital. staples. romney can count on every tv viewer being completely familiar with the staples tag line, well, that was easy. coincidentally, some say that being mitt is easy. so maybe his campaign ad team might imagine the mitt luck as a political selling point. something like this. >> mitt romney, governor,

family man, and most important of all, a conservative business leader. >> i worked to become deeply involved in helping businesses from innovative startups to large companies going through tough times. probably the largest employer we started was staples. it employs 90,000 people today. >> in fact, mitt romney is so proud of his success with staples that he's adapted its slowing ton fit his winning presidential -- slogan to fit his winning presidential campaign. it's working. >> this is campaign night where america wins. we're going to change the white house and get america back on track. thank you, new hampshire. tonight we made history. >> mitt romney, because he makes it look so easy. >> that was easy. chris: he may use that one. and when we come back, the super duper rich dedicated to

defeating barack obama. and predictions from the notebooks of these top reporters.

chris: welcome back. this week we learn the obama team is short of cash. they're struggling to become competitive with the republican attack machine that's coming. here are just a few of the big money types fueling that anti-obama machine. david and charles koch. the koch brothers. with an oil fortune and lumber and paper. they pledged to raise and spend $200 million to beat barack obama. then there are the multimillionaire donors to karl rove's superpac. that graphic shows just three of the biggest. including bob perry, the guy whose son john kerry by funding the swift boat ads in 2004. andrea, this ability to raise enormous amounts of money, spend enormous amounts of money, put tv ads on and saturation level, just one or two issues affecting the candidate you don't like, it's new.

>> ts new. it came not not just from sit sentence united -- citizens united but another case that expanded it. individuals could always spend unlmented amounts of money but now independent groups did without disclosure and no transpatterncy and it changed the climate. we saw what happened in iowa and newt gingrich is correct. the romney supporters just smeared him with unanswered ads. and that is what propelled mitt romney with a better-than-expected iowa showing into new hampshire. showing the trajectory -- chris: the slind are a thing. -- the solyndra thing. a subsidy to an energy company that went bad. and now -- >> right. look, on both sides, and there will be some democratic money that will come into play on this. there is something very linear and direct about having money, going to a certain group and having them poll directly, advertise directly, and show you what's happening on the polling data. in an immediate way. the old way, you had to go

through parties, you call up and someone would call you back in a couple of weeks. those in the business community and those see the superpax as a direct linear -- superpacs as a direct linear and accountable means of influencing political debate and that's why they like them. chris: like one of those telemarketers and put an ad on the air in certain zip codes and pull vrize with ads and how many sales they got and they can do it like that. zpwhrfpblets they can do it like that and as we saw in iowa, it totally changed the whole election and interesting to see what they pull out to work against obama. but one little sidebar to this is a lot of the candidates themselves really don't love the superpacs and romney said he wanted to -- he would like to see them disappear. chris: but it destroyed newt gingrich in iowa. >> true. but part of the problem is sometimes the superpacs are organized by people who have enormous egos and who are on a vanity trip of their own. it doesn't necessarily always work best for the candidate. chris: an example, we know

this, but here was john kerry's greatest strength, greatest strength, that he had fought in the vietnam war and so many other candidates had. and reporting for duty. remember a lot of the acceptance speech? they went right at that. >> they did. and the big question, i think, is obama, here he was, exactly two years ago, talking to the supreme court in front of him, calling out citizens united. now he has to make that decision. does he go with it or not? he's going to go with it more for survival. but i think everyone at the end of this campaign may want to take a shower because it's going to have this bad feeling. >> the campaign has figured out that the solyndra attack worked. chris: this is going to depress voting. negative advertising depresses amount of people that show up. it will help republican candidates probably for that reason historically. lower voting turnout. when we come back, scoops and

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>> tell me something i don't know is brought to you by chars schwab. let's talk about the personal attention and you your money deserve. talk to chuck. chris: welcome back. major, tell me something i don't know. >> the president's state of the union is this week and it's expected by republicans to be partisan. but there are those in the republican house and senate who look to -- remember back in 1996 and worked with bill clinton, very subessful on policy and bipartisan compromises and bruce reed, the vice president's chief of staff and there is some glimmer of hope, some work might get done this year. chris: the new chief of staff? >> indeed. >> and looking ahead to the next primary in florida, 30% of

the hispanic community is keeping -- is cuban-american, a smaller proportion, and so the hispanic community there is different. and they are less prone to be susceptible to mitt romney's hard-line on immigration. more prone to the newt gingrich approach to immigration. the other interesting little fact is about the mexican romneys. those looking back at all of those records say that mitt romney should look back at the records because the romneys that came back from mexico to the united states, they crossed the border illegally. >> wow. chris: kathleen. >> you may have one upped me on that one, andrea. everybody thinks romney is perfect. we know he doesn't drink. he doesn't drink coffee. flawless. i have found a weakness. and i hope this is one thing you don't know. mitt romney apparently has a weakness for cool whip. chris: that's it, huh? >> a lot of it. chris: mr. excitement. >> i don't know where to go with that one.

ever since 2008 when mike huckabee was blaming romney and saying he's like -- looks like the guy that laid you off, the democrats have loved this idea of bain capital and an area to go. but they might realize that it's not as clear of winner for them as they might think. because when you drill down in the polling, it's clear that the vast majority of americans blame both parties for having this cozy relationship with corporate america. they don't see that as soak the rich. they see that as level the playing field. chris: when we come back the big question of the week. does barack obama have enough time now to turn on the juice? be right back. >> "the chris matthews show" is brought to you by charles schwab. get the help your money deserves. talk to chuck.

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>> of course he will. he will run a tough, aggressive campaign and the speech on state of the union will be an interesting governing speech. the political speech, that's his re-election speech. chris: andrea. >> i agree with all of that. he's going to have the money. he will have the juice. the question is, what other events are going to happen in the economy and europe elsewhere that are going to change the whole climate for this campaign? chris: is he going to command the narrative this year and telling the story of 2012? >> he has an opportunity to do that but the big point you made about the european economy is huge. he noose control over that and that's going to affect us and ultimately the economy and where we sit on election day. that will determine it. >> a much more energetic campaigner than in government. that's going to be whether this engages him. chris: thank you very much. great roundtable. major garrett, andrea mitchell, kathleen parker, and neil swidey. and that's the show. thanks for watching. and that's the show. thanks for watching. see you back here next week.